Georgia in 1997

Head of state and government: President Eduard A. Shevardnadze, assisted by Minister of State Nikoloz Lekishvili

Georgia’s strained relationship with Russia was the major factor determining the country’s domestic as well as foreign policy in 1997. Both the leadership and the opposition accused Moscow of seeking to use the conflict over the breakaway Black Sea province of Abkhazia to undermine Georgia’s sovereignty; in December a leading Georgian parliamentarian charged that Russia was plotting to assassinate Pres. Eduard Shevardnadze and return the Communist Party to power.

Early in the year Shevardnadze proclaimed a new campaign against corruption, and in July Security Minister Shota Kviraya was forced to resign following accusations by opposition National Democratic Party leader Irina Sarishvili-Chanturia that he was engaged in black-market trading in cigarettes and gasoline. Two former influential political figures who had helped engineer Shevardnadze’s return to power in Georgia in 1992 were brought to trial. In September former prime minister Tengiz Sigua was ordered to repay $5.8 million compensation for losses allegedly incurred by his decision in early 1992 to continue using former Soviet foreign exchange rates. Sigua accused Shevardnadze of fabricating the charges against him. The trial of Djaba Ioseliani, former leader of the Mkhedrioni paramilitary formation, and 14 of his associates opened in early December. They were charged with terrorism and involvement in the failed assassination attempt against Shevardnadze in August 1995, but proceedings were immediately suspended because of the illness of one of the defense lawyers.

The Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Moscow in late March agreed to Shevardnadze’s demand that the CIS peacekeeping force deployed since July 1994 along the internal border between Georgia and Abkhazia be given broader powers to protect ethnic Georgians who had fled their homes in Abkhazia during the 1992-93 war and wished to return. The Abkhaz leadership, however, protested this decision, which Moscow then failed to implement. Instead, the Russian foreign ministry mediated several rounds of talks between Abkhaz and Georgian leaders in Moscow in June and July, but he failed to persuade both sides to sign a draft protocol intended to serve as a basis for a political settlement of the conflict. Abkhaz leader Vladislav Ardzinba flew to Tbilisi in August for a face-to-face meeting with Shevardnadze; at that meeting the two men renounced the use of force in bilateral relations. Meeting in Geneva in late November under UN auspices, Georgian and Abkhaz delegations agreed to create working groups to expedite the resumption of economic ties and the repatriation of Georgian displaced persons.

From early summer onward, Russian border guards systematically refused to permit vehicles transporting alcohol to enter Russian territory from Georgia. Georgians perceived this ban as intended to undermine the country’s potential role as a transport artery and thus to deprive it of lucrative customs tariffs. Also in early summer, Russian border guards arbitrarily moved a frontier post 1,300 m (1,420 yd) into Georgian territory, which elicited protests from the Georgian government. Anti-Russian feeling was further fueled by the disclosure in October that several Georgian soldiers had contracted radiation sickness from radioactive substances abandoned at a former Soviet military base.

Shevardnadze alternated in his official statements between reproaching Moscow for its alleged anti-Georgian bias and declaring Russia a strategic ally. During a visit to the U.S. in August, he sought American support for his country’s potential role as one of the export routes for Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea oil. In November Shevardnadze announced a moratorium on implementing death sentences handed down by Georgian courts--one of the preconditions set for full membership in the Council of Europe, in which Georgia in 1997 had "special guest" status. In October, however, the presidents of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova announced an alternative alignment reflecting their shared security concerns and the desire to profit jointly from the transport of Caspian oil through their territories.

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